Tuesday, July 24, 2012

By now you have heard about the survey AMPC (Annual Meeting Program Committee) is collecting. This survey is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. AMPC will compile responses to the survey and use those to determine the topics on which we want to be educated in next year's annual meeting programming. If topics are not given to AMPC through the survey or through direct communication, AMPC will assume that there is no interest in a topic and will not accept programs about that topic.

Having taken the survey myself, I can tell you that there is a lot of white space in which ideas are solicited, which is good, but that there are a lot of boxes to check off. The fear of the OBS-SIS Education Committee is that people may check off the boxes and then not think to add other topics that might be of interest in the white space. For me, there's something about filling in the boxes which makes it difficult to think of anything not in the boxes.

In the interest of making sure we do have programs on topics of interest to our membership, OBS-SIS Education Committee has compiled the following list of topics that we thought of interest that you might want to put into the white space. Please regard this email as a call for other topics of interest to our membership -- please respond to this message with other topics of interest if there are things we've left out.

Consider this a call as well for ideas for OBS programs you would like to see in Seattle. If you respond in the comments, you will be providing more topics for people to put in the white space of the survey.

Here is a link to the survey: http://www.cvent.com/Surveys/Welcome.aspx?s=248a35ab-8e5d-4a51-86c5-c7b219bf2cc0

And, we have learned that you can take the survey more than once, so if ideas occur to you after you have taken the survey, please take it again!

Here is our list, which we would love for you to augment:

Cloud computing, legal issues around cloud computing
What comes after MARC? The post-MARC world and what it will look likeVendor showcase of discovery tools (i.e., front ends of our catalogs - how they interact with the data we put in, including how they are beginning to make use of RDA)OCLC update made more interactiveMoving from one ILS to another as a consortium: a case study

Thanks very much -- we look forward to your responses and don't forget to take the survey!

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Oklahoma City University's photo of Anglo American Law Review, v.14-19 (1984-1990) covered in mold, has captured the prize of a $150 Visa gift card awarded by the Preservation Committee. Their photo was submitted by Jennifer Prilliman, Head of Reference Services.

The 2012 Renee D. Chapman Memorial Award was presented to George Prager, Head of Cataloging and Assistant Professor at the New York University Law School Library, at the Technical Services Special Interest Section business meeting on Sunday, July 22, 2012. His contributions include:

Serving as the AALL representative to the Machine Readable Bibliographic Information Committee (MARBI);

Valuable contributions to the professional literature through numerous publications and articles;

Co-chair, Program for Cooperative Cataloging;

Serving multiple terms as chair of the TS-SIS Cataloging and Classification Standing Committee.

Linda Tesar, Head of Technical Services at the College of William & Mary Law Library and long-time TS-SIS member (do you remember her glorious term as co-editor of TSLL with Anna Belle Leiserson in the late 90's?)has been honored with the AALL/LexisNexis Call for Papers Award in the Open Division for her paper, Forensic Bibliography: Reconstructing the Library of George Wythe. Her paper documents her attempts at William & Mary to reconstruct the library of George Wythe, signer of the Declaration of Independence and first professor of law at William & Mary, where he taught Thomas Jefferson and William Marshall. Wythe left his library to Thomas Jefferson upon his death. Jefferson discarded the books he already owned, and those he incorporated into his own library were then sold to the Library of Congress in 1815. Wythe's originally physical library has scattered, but Linda's paper documents how the William & Mary Law Library has gone about trying to determine which books Wythe owned, and were they can find, if not the original books, then exact replicas. Linda will be discussing her paper at H6: The Librarian as Author: AALL.LexisNexis Call for Papers on Tuesday from 8:30-9:45 in HCC Room 311.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

I arrived late but really enjoyed the Alphabet Soup Reception outside on the Sheraton Pool Patio. The fresh, cool air felt wonderful and the company was superb, as always.
Thanks for the photos, Chris!

Silent Auction will be starting Sunday morning 7/22 at 10 AM and ending Tuesday 7/24 at 2 PM. Volunteers needed, especially for exhibit hall break times, to sit at auction table. Let me know if you are interested and what time? Thanks!
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Richard Paone
Assistant Law Librarian
Dickinson School of Law Library of the Pennsylvania State University
Carlisle PA

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Thanks to Martin Wisneski, the handout and PowerPoint slides for this TS-SIS sponsored presentation are now available on the TS-SIS website:

http://www.aallnet.org/sis/tssis/annualmeeting/2012/handouts/

This program is scheduled for 1:15pm to 2:15pm on Monday July 23 in Room 206 of the Convention Center. Presenters are Georgia Briscoe, Robert Linz and Karen Selden, all from the William A. Wise Law Library at the University of Colorado Law Library. More details are below.

Participants will be able to identify and discuss the major issues involved with creating a digital archive.
Participants will be able to develop an action plan for creating a digital archive in their own institutions.

Description:

In July 2011, the University of Colorado's William A. Wise Law Library received a large and unexpected donation of print materials when former Dean and prolific scholar David Getches passed away. The library's small staff, which had limited experience with archives or digitization, suddenly became "Accidental Archivists," with a mandated goal to create a digital archive of selected materials from the donation by April 2012. This program traces the development of the project from initiation to completion and provides a practical case study of what to expect when a library undertakes a digitization project for the first time. The presentation will focus on issues such as: establishing digitization processes and obtaining equipment; funding; gathering permissions; planning; staffing; and using outside sources of assistance.

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Karen Selden
Catalog Librarian
William A. Wise Law Library, University of Colorado Law School
Boulder, CO

After Amanda Schmidt from Ex Libris speaks to us during the first half of this session, Helen Lacouture (Boston College) will share her perspective on Alma, in light of the recent announcement that Boston College has gone live with the Ex Libris Alma library management service.

If you're planning to attend Creating Legal Subject Headings (on Sunday, July 23, 1:30-2:30) please note that we've included a wealth of handout materials on the TS-SIS page (44 pages).

http://www.aallnet.org/sis/tssis/annualmeeting/2012/handouts/

While they are all valuable references to read through, don't feel compelled to print out each of them for the conference.

We highly recommend having ready access to p. 1-10, 31-32, and 38-39 during our presentation. You'll be working through a real SACO submission, and it will be hard without this core.

An excellent reference source bibliography is contained on pages 43-44.
A sample look at the Law Funnel submission form is on pages 40-42, but this form is online at:
http://www.aallnet.org/sis/tssis/sacolawfunnel/proposeheading.htm

2. Collect a pool of positive first-day experiences
Pull from a summer camp, new school, college, new job, new club. We want to engage our colleagues, but we need to figure out which approaches are effective and which are white noise or annoying.

3. Collect pool of success-in-TS-SIS stories.
Share memories of your involvement in TS-SIS or vignettes that show the value of membership. Pull together a packet of stories to answer why should people join and be active in TS.

4. Review of other TS committees and their major projects and responsibilities

There are currently 97 members of the facebook group TSLAWCHATS. There is no better time to join the chat group than now--- just before and during and after our AALL Annual Meeting.

It would be really cool to have over 100 members representing all types and sizes of law librarians interested in tech services chats. The more chatters we have the better. The facebook group has "waves" of posting chats off and on, so it's not overwhelming.

The fb social networking tool is not as informative nor as rich as the TS-SIS blog. If you haven't gone there yet, or know about it, you need to right now, so you know that the facebook group isn't at like the blog. They are two different communications sharing tools.

I'm getting pretty excited to see everybody in Boston. I just wish EVERYBODY could go. Dang! But you can enjoy the blog and the photos and postings online whether or not you're in Boston.

If you're one of the 97 TSLAWCHATS members, keep checking your facebook for chats, and don't be afraid to post chat chime-ins.
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Brian Striman
U. of Nebraska

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

A new feature this conference are the "Coffee talks" sessions. I've taken the following from the AALL schedule. Since it's apparently an ongoing feature for 2013, we might want to consider proposing one or two ourselves --

To keep the conversation flowing in Boston, informal “Coffee Talk” discussions will be held on Tuesday morning. Attendees can brainstorm, sound off, and share their challenges, experiences, and ideas—and strengthen ties to their professional community. The following table topics will be hosted by AALL members:

See below for the agenda for the Descriptive Cataloging Policy Advisory Working Group meeting, to be held at the bracing hour of 7:15 am on Tuesday, July 24 in the HCC, Room 305.

Our main discussion item will be the development of "best practices" for RDA within the law cataloging community.

Working Group members, please come with your concerns, questions, and good ideas. We will be needing volunteers from the wider Technical Services and Online Bibliographic Services communities to add your expertise and talent, so all interested members are welcome to join us.

If you are going to AALL Boston. If you want to attend a gameshow involving teams and Jeopardy! the game show format. If you want to be part of a team. If you want to just come and listen and learn and cheer on the teams. If you want to see me try to be a game show host.

Monday, July 16, 2012

Good Afternoon, TS-SIS Members,
Everyone involved with serials is invited to attend the TS-SIS Serials Standing Committee Meeting & Roundtable, next Tuesday, July 24, from 7:15am-8:15am in the Sheraton-Independence Ballroom West. There will be coffee, as well as light continental breakfast-like refreshments, to help you get the last day of the conference started right.

The Serials Standing Committee Meeting & Roundtable gives you an opportunity to meet and network with other law librarians interested in serials issues. For this year's roundtable we are going to talk about electronic journal access, legacy print serials, and how the ongoing switch to electronic serials continues to affect our workflow and staffing. Appended below is the agenda that was distributed in an earlier email as well.

I hope you will be able to attend! You can add it to your AALL schedule at the following link:
http://aall12.sched.org/event/664746eee69f649ce1ba1c6f36c423f2

2. Approval of minutes from 2011 meeting in Philadelphia
http://www.aallnet.org/sis/tssis/committees/serials/minutes/2011.htm

3. Old business

a. Exchange of Duplicates Program

b. Other items?

4. New business

a. Call for program ideas for AALL 2013

b. Other items?

5. Serials Roundtable Discussion

a. In what ways are you acquiring and providing access to journals online? Such as through third party aggregator databases, full-image archive sites, individual title online subscriptions, or purchasing individual articles when requested, etc.

b. What print serial related “passenger pigeons” are you maintaining in your library?

c. What changes to workflow and staff duties have you made this year, because of decreased print/increased online access to serial related materials?

The TS-SIS Acquisitions Standing Committee Meeting and Roundtable is scheduled for next Monday, July 23, from 7:00 - 8:30 a.m. at the Sheraton Boston Hotel, Commonwealth Room.

As has been the case the past several years, the TS-SIS Executive Board has been kind enough to provide us with a budget for breakfast food and beverage items. So there will be goodies to help mitigate the early hour of the meeting!

Thanks,
Eric

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Eric Parker
Acquisitions Librarian and Coordinator of Library Metadata Services
Northwestern University School of Law
Chicago IL

I hope you are all planning to attend this year's Rare Book Cataloging Roundtable, which will take place Monday, 12:00-1:00 p.m., in the Sheraton--Berkeley B.

So far we have only two agenda items, which leaves a lot of time for open discussion. If you have a topic you would like to add to the agenda, please shoot me an e-mail: yates006@umn.edu.

Here's what we have so far:

I. Introductions/Round robin reports: What are you working on? (Optional--you don't have to talk if you just want to listen.)

II. Archives, in comparison with rare books and special collections. Special emphasis on description of archives. I highly recommend Stacy Etheredge's great article on archives in law libraries in the latest Spectrum: http://aallnet.org/main-menu/Publications/spectrum/Vol-16/No-9/archives.pdf as background.

III. Open discussion or your agenda items!

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Sarah Yates
University of Minnesota Law Library
Minneapolis MN

Hopefully you have received a link to the survey requesting your input for educational programming needs for the Seattle meeting. The theme is "Rethink Your Value." I urge you to complete the survey. The survey closes on August 10, 2012. Thank you, and see you in Boston!

In 2013, AALL will work with you to Rethink Your Value for the future. How can we maximize our value to our organizations? How can we best anticipate our users' needs and move our attorneys, judges, and students to the next level? To help the 2013 Annual Meeting Program Committee (AMPC) identify topics and issues of importance to our members, I would appreciate if you would take a few moments to complete the following brief survey.

This work has already started, and AALL is rethinking how we deliver dynamic, relevant programming to our members. Starting with the VCC Report, through the recommendations of the Annual Meeting Special Committee, identifying members' issues and educational needs is paramount for adult, learner-centric programming critical for the future of the profession.

I encourage you to think about what you need in your work environment to increase your value and position yourself at the forefront of your institution. Do you seek management tools, technology guidance, improved research skills, or proven means for raising the profile of your role and your library?

The results of the survey will be shared with all members and will shape the call for proposals for the 2013 Annual Meeting in early September. I encourage all members to develop program proposals that focus on members' needs as identified in the survey. Using a blind review process, the 2013 AMPC will select programming addressing these identified needs.

The survey will close on Friday, August 10. If you are attending the Annual Meeting in Boston and are inspired, the survey will also be available at a terminal in the Member Services Booth in the Exhibit Hall.

Survey link: http://www.cvent.com/d/5cq1kd

The survey is anonymous. If you have any questions about the purpose or objectives of this survey, please feel free to email me at jwenger@aall.org. If you experience technical difficulties, you may email Heidi Letzmann, AALL education and programs manager, at hletzmann@aall.org.

The Report of the AALL Representative to the Subject Analysis Committee (SAC) is now on the TS-SIS website at: http://www.aallnet.org/sis/tssis/representatives/2012/sac2012.htm
I will not be bringing print copies to the TS Cataloging and Classification Committee meeting on Sunday morning, so please make your own printout if you want one.

Friday, July 13, 2012

Hello,
as incoming Chair of TS-SIS, I'd like to join Christina in encouraging all of you to fill out the survey being distributed on Monday, July 16, to voice your opinions about what kinds of education, training, and other professional learning and support you need. Here is a link to Christina's discussion on the AALL Annual Meeting blog about the programming and scheduling changes in effect for the meeting in Seattle. Thanks!
Miriam

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Miriam Childs
Head of Technical Services
Law Library of Louisiana
New Orleans LA

The Technical Services Law Librarian (TSLL) Editorial Board is still seeking applicants and nominations for the position of Editor-in-Chief of the Technical Services Law Librarian.

The position is open to all members of either TS-SIS or OBS-SIS who express an interest in the position and have the necessary skills to fulfill the responsibilities of being Editor-in-Chief. The position is for a two year term without any restriction on how long a person may serve after the original commitment.

Full position description, requirements, and application instructions are in the attached document.

Review of applications will begin immediately and continue until the position is filled. Questions may be directed to Michele Thomas at (501) 324-9868 or at hmthomas@ualr.edu.

If you're intrigued but not yet certain whether you'd like to apply, you could talk to a member of the TSLL Editorial Board in person at the Joint Reception of the TS/OBS/RIPS/CS SISs on Saturday, July 21st in Boston. Members of the current board include Michele Thomas, Lorna Y. Tang, Janet Hedin, Marilyn K. Nicely, Cindy May, and Virginia Bryant, the current, out-going Editor-in-Chief.

Michele

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Janet Hedin
Reference Librarian
Michigan State University College of Law
East Lansing MI

Thursday, July 12, 2012

One of the places where ideas for educational programs for Seattle are going to be discussed is the Annual Meeting Program Ideas Community, reachable here. There's not a whole lot of activity yet, but presumably there will be more soon. Looks like this is a place to suggest a program idea you may have, or to look through ideas suggested by others to see if you have an idea of how to make them happen.

The Task Group on Vendor-Supplied Bibliographic Records will be meeting at AALL on Monday, July 23, from 5:45 to 6:45. The meeting will be held in the Sheraton Hotel, in the Jefferson Room. The agenda for the meeting is attached.

The task group has decided to try a slightly different meeting format this year. We have designated the first 15 minutes of the meeting as an information exchange with any bibliographic record vendors who are in attendance. Vendor reps will then be excused and the meeting will continue with task force members and other guests.

This will be the last notice before Craft Court convenes in Boston on Sunday, July 23rd, 10:00 am, in the Exhibit Hall. Come have a sit and craft for an hour. No judges, no juries. Just folks interesting in doing a craft.
Also, we will collect the blankets for the little ones at Children's Hospital of Boston. We have already received three wonderful, handmade ones from Isa, Leslie and Phoebe. Check them out on the Craft Court flickr page.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/82471413@N08/
Have a safe trip to Boston. Can't wait to see you there.

Lesliediana, Susan and Debby

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Susan Chinoransky
Head of Serials and Processing
George Washington University
Washington DC

I am presenting at a PLL-SIS program at AALL in Boston called Technical Services by the Seat of Your Pants, on Monday, July 23 at 7:30 am.
Please answer a brief survey for private law librarians about technical services functions at your firm.
There are only nine questions including your name. All names and firm detail will be strictly confidential.
Since this is very late, please respond quickly.

Survey can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/752ahuq
Survey results will be here: http://tinyurl.com/dyxn4ae

The TS-SIS Business and Awards Meeting will be held on Sunday, July 22, from 5:15 - 6:15 p.m. in the John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center, Room 205. Attached is the agenda which has been posted to the TS-SIS website -- http://www.aallnet.org/sis/tssis/annualmeeting/2012/businessmeetingagenda.htm

We will vote on the following:

1. Approval of the July 2011 Business Meeting minutes which were published in TSLL (September 2011 issue) and posted on the TS-SIS website -- http://www.aallnet.org/sis/tssis/annualmeeting/2012/2011minutes.htm

Conference time is drawing near, and the TS-SIS needs volunteers to staff the activities table at AALL. Your duties will be to encourage people to enter the raffle to win a $25 Amazon gift card, make visitors feel welcome, and talk to them about the benefits of membership in the TS-SIS. Log in at http://www.aallnet.org/sis/tssis/annualmeeting/2012/activitiestable/ and select a time that fits your schedule. I do hope that you can help!!

Thank you for volunteering!!
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Carol M. Collins, TS-SIS Membership Committee Chair
Head of Technical Services
University of Tennessee College of Law Library
Knoxville, TN

AMPC recently released an FAQ detailing changes to conference planning for the Annual Meeting in Seattle, 2013. I've excerpted a few points here, their language in italics.

AMPC intends to solicit ideas for the topics most relevant to the membership, and then build the programs around those ideas.

AALL will be conducting member surveys before, during, and immediately after the Annual Meeting, using a variety of venues and mediums, to identify the major issues and challenges facing members. Annual Meeting attendees will have opportunities to suggest topics throughout the meeting venue. The Call for Proposals from the AMPC will include a summary of these member-identified issues so SISs (and other AALL entities and individual members) understand members’ educational needs early in the process. These topics will help all proposers to develop and align conference content with these member-identified education needs. During the evaluation process, the AMPC will identify and accept programs that best address these strategic issues.

For this reason, it will be very important for everyone to fill out the survey, which should be available from 7/16 to 8/10.

Blind review. No sessions reserved for SIS's chosen program: The AMPC will employ a blind review process in which AMPC members will review the proposals based on their content - program title, description, and learning objectives. The program sponsor will no longer be part of the proposal review process and there will be no ranking of proposals by AALL entities. All proposals will be reviewed blind -- i.e., stripped of the names of the proposers, or the SIS proposing them. Each SIS will no longer have a slot reserved for their one most highly ranked program.

Call for Proposals deadline extended to October 15: The Call for Proposals, built around member-identified issues, will be announced after the Annual Meeting. (The Call for Proposals will be announced via AALLNET, the Members’ Open Forum on AALLNET, and the SIS Council Forum. Stay tuned.) The deadline for proposing programs will be October 15.No one has yet seen what the proposal forms will look like.

One independent SIS program per conference, cost to be picked up by SIS: The AMPC will schedule all programs to ensure a balanced variety of programming in every time slot. SISs will no longer select the date/time for their independently-produced programs. The AMPC will also limit the total number of concurrent programs to no more than 8 – including both AALL-sponsored and SIS sponsored. This will allow each SIS to have one independently-produced program at the Annual Meeting.

Alternative formats: Adjustments are being made to the 2013 conference schedule to better meet the educational and networking needs of attendees. Each day will allow for either alternative format educational opportunities or longer, more intensive educational programming.

Meeting times: Recent attendee survey comments report participants feel over-scheduled during the conference and that their energy for educational experiences is diminished. Please consider these factors and be sensitive to the busy schedules of your SIS’s members when planning additional meetings and events. . . .To address the foregoing concerns, the total number of meetings by a single SIS will be limited to no more than 10, excluding receptions, breakfasts, and lunches.
As you know, groups are no longer allowed to schedule meetings concurrently against education programs. We have adjusted the schedule so at least two different meeting scheduling times remain available each day of the conference. We have added an additional slot of meeting time on Saturday from 1-3 p.m. for meetings. AALL committee meetings are held from 3-5 p.m. on Saturday and we have received positive feedback from this change. Meeting times are also available each day after education sessions are over.

More leadership training: Leadership Training for Committees, SISs, and Chapters will be revamped in 2013 from a procedural training to functional leadership training and will be held on Saturday morning. We are excited to bring a leadership facilitator to develop and prepare leaders for success during their year. Procedural training will occur in the early fall utilizing virtual training.

These are some pretty big changes. It is certainly great to have a bit more time to put together programs after the Annual Meeting. It will be important for TS and OBS members to fill out the survey and otherwise make our desires known (AMPS will have a table in the exhibit hall) regarding what kind of programing we'd like to have in Seattle. I think the challenge now is to figure out how we can productively fit our business into the new meeting model -- 10 SIS meetings total per conference may be a challenge! -- and how to use the new education programming model to ensure that we see the kind of programming we want in Seattle.

The Cataloging and Classification Roundtable will be held on Tuesday, July 24, 2012, HCC Room 205, from 5-6 pm. Please come to the meeting! This year, we have an especially scintillating agenda.
As befitting a roundtable, the folks listed in #2-#4 will be leading a group discussion on the topics, not giving lectures!

Welcome; Introductory remarks (George Prager; 5 mins.)

Issues in Genre/Form Implementation (Yael Mandelstam; 15 mins.)

Use of the MARC 21 bibliographic 751 field (Yael Mandelstam; 10 mins.)

"Best practices" for RDA within the law cataloging community? Aaron Kuperman (10 mins.)

RDA Training Issues. Aaron Kuperman et al. (15 mins.)

New business (George Prager, 5 mins.)

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George Prager
Head of Cataloging
New York University Law Library
New York NY

Sunday, July 08, 2012

The OBS-SIS Program: User Groups on RDA title in the AALL 2012 Conference
Schedule is a bit misleading. There was some confusion in the planning process
and the previously separate OBS user group meetings (Aleph, Inmagic, SirsiDynix,
Softlink, and Voyager) were all rolled into this one program for Boston.

It was decided to turn this into an Ex Libris Update Program, since the most
user group attendees have historically been present at the Aleph and Voyager
sessions, and since these two systems share the same parent company (Ex
Libris). Amanda Schmidt (Ex Libris) will use approximately half the 90-minute
slot to deliver a presentation focused on Alma (Ex Libris' next-generation
library management service), including its accommodation of RDA, as well as on
status reports of the current Aleph and Voyager products.

This will be an excellent opportunity for anyone interested in seeing how Alma
and next generation systems in general are developing.

The remainder of the program time will be used for the various user group
members in attendance to split off into their appropriate groups and discuss
any specific system issues of interest.

AALL badge

Philadelphia 2015

Technical Services Special Interest Section

The Technical Services Special Interest Section (TS-SIS) of the American Association of Law Libraries promotes the communication of ideas, interests, and research which concern acquisitions, cataloging and classification, preservation of library materials, serials control, and other traditional areas of technical services and supports the development and coordination of the country's law library resources, in all type and sizes of libraries.

Online Bibliographic Services SIS

The Online Bibliographic Services Special Interest Section (OBS-SIS) of the American Association of Law Libraries focuses on all aspects of the various national and local bibliographic utilities. These include public access to bibliographic data online, acquisitions sub-systems, mail message systems, and integration of circulation systems with the online bibliographic data.